As I was reading through some books focusing on African American literary presence for another class, and found a lot of interesting information on women in literature following the Civil Rights Act. I traced out a few thoughts I had while reading this. Although it did not end up being remotely helpful for my Senior Seminar final, I tried to historicize a little more to bring this here.
The most obvious beneficiary of the Civil Rights Act was the African American community. They were the most visibly and intensely oppressed group and as a consequence created and spearheaded the movement. Although many of the individuals participating were clearly motivated by a desire to see racial equality in all aspects of life, there were unintended benefits to specific groups that are not often associated with the black and white photos of demonstrations and rallies. One such group, that transcends race, is women. It is true that prior to the Law’s passage, African Americans in many areas of the country were second class citizens. People forget that women often suffered similar, but more discrete degradations.The Civil Rights Act finally gave them recourse to shatter the glass ceiling, or at the very least knock some holes in it, with protections like equal employment opportunity. For example, before the law was passed, a negligible percent of all attorneys were women. It was also exceedingly common to see “male only” job listings and for females to be fired or not hired due to any pregnancies or small children in their care. The Civil Rights Act changed all this by empowering them to fight the systemic denial of their basic freedoms. Today almost a third of all attorneys are women and that number continues to grow. In addition, it also paved the way for other landmark legislation like the Americans with Disabilities Act, another often marginalized community that is not necessarily very visible.
This is an interesting idea, but how does it compare to the 19th Amendment? It is very interesting that between that adoption and the civil rights act, there was not much growth in fields. In the popular imagination, at least, it does seem as though many high-paying/high power jobs became much more available to women in the 70s and 80s, just as the same positions became available to African Americans. If only Hillary had been elected, because that wouldn't given this even more credence.
ReplyDeleteWhat this draws attention to for me is the layers of discrimination that exist in society today. On the job market it was and still is to some degree a disadvantage to be black as it was a disadvantage to be a women. This means to be a black women had and even greater impact on your prospects than if you were one of the two. It is important to recognize the layers of persecution that people face as it reminds us that there are many battles to be fought and won before there is anything close to equality between a straight white christian man and a black lesbian muslim. We can achieve that equality but only if we fight for all marginalized peoples as much as we fight for the issues that impact us directly.
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